As Israeli mavericks emulate an American top gun by defying Communist China, the Jewish state may soon discover it has a lot in common with a beleaguered Asian democracy, the free Republic of China. 

In his latest hit film, Tom Cruise went against a Hollywood tradition of capitulating to Beijing’s dictates over American movies. Mr. Cruise insisted his “Top Gun: Maverick” character wear Taiwanese and Japanese flags on his Navy uniform sleeve. While Communist China might censor the film, it broke records and earned a bundle at home, proving it’s possible to defy Beijing and survive. 

In the latest development, the chief editor of the Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz, stood up to threats from Communist China, whose Tel Aviv embassy demanded the removal from the news outlet’s website of an interview Mr. Katz had conducted with Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu. Unless Mr. Katz caves, the embassy threatened, Communst China would sever ties with the Jerusalem Post and downgrade diplomatic relations with Israel. 

“Needless to say, the story ain’t going anywhere,” Mr. Katz tweeted with Cruise-like swagger.  

A Knesset member from the orthodox party Shas, Moshe Arbel, followed up with a letter to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, calling on him to summon the Chinese ambassador for a reprimand over interfering in Israel’s democratic principle of free speech. 

In solidarity with the Post, Eran Mor Cicurel, the top foreign editor at Kan, Israel’s public radio, interviewed Taiwan’s representative in Israel, Abby Lee. “We are aware of Israel’s sensitivities,” Ms. Lee said when asked about military relations with Israel, tacitly acknowledging that such ties would constitute a red line for Beijing.

Yet, Ms. Lee added, “there are areas in which we can cooperate,” including in research and in civil defense. She also made clear that Taiwan officially maintains a status quo in which “one China” can be interpreted differently in Beijing and in Taipei.

Ms. Lee’s official title is representative of the Taipei economic and cultural office at Jerusalem. Israel has a representative with a corresponding title at Taipei. Similar offices exist around the world, including at New York and Washington, allowing Beijing to pretend that Taiwan is a wayward province that would soon be peacefully united with the mainland. 

While on a visit to Taipei several years ago, many Republic of China officials raised similarities between their country and Israel. Taiwan’s founder, Chang Kai Shek, and his army escaped to the island in 1949 after losing the rest of China to the Communists led by Mao Tse Tung. Israel’s war of independence ended that same year. 

The two countries are thriving free states that base their capitalistic economies on sophisticated, groundbreaking technologies. Endlessly fearing an invasion from the mainland, Taiwan maintains a conscript army with an assignment that resembles the Israel Defense Force’s goal of protecting the country from a powerful neighbor that continuously threatens the existence of its democratic foundation. 

Yet, in 1950 Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, shunned Taiwan and quickly recognized Mao’s China instead. It wasn’t only because of Ben Gurion’s socialist ideology, a former ambassador to Japan and director of the Asia desk at Jerusalem’s foreign ministry, Ruti Kahanov, says.  

“Ben Gurion predicted, ahead of most world leaders, that with its size and growth potential China would become a leading world power,” Ms. Kahanov told the Sun. 

When Israel finally formalized relations with Beijing in 1992, it signed a clause that banned ties with Taiwan. Later, as China pushed its global Belt and Road initiative, Beijing entered bids for infrastructure projects in Israel, which was impressed with the low prices, fast project completions, and work quality. 

That love affair, though, may have gone too far. Washington has started to worry about inroads made by its top global competitor into its closest Mideast ally. The first crisis came when Washington forced Israel to cancel two arms system sales, of the Falcon and Harpy, to Beijing. 

Later, projects like China’s construction of a container facility at Haifa’s port caught the eye of American military officials. Concerned that the People’s Liberation Army would use its access there to spy on America’s sixth fleet, which periodically uses the port, Washington leaned on Israel to rethink its relations with Beijing. 

“It started as an American pressure, but soon it also dawned on us as well and we became much more aware of dangers involved in allowing China too much access to the country,” an Israeli diplomat told the Sun. 

Now a ban on the export of all Israeli arms to China is enforced by the defense and foreign ministries, and a special committee oversees infrastructure projects. This year it declined a Communist Chinese company’s bid to build a light-rail system at Tel Aviv. 

As Israel gets weary of letting into its tent the nose of the Communist Chinese camel, Israel nevertheless is unlikely to formalize relations with Taiwan anytime soon. Nevertheless, a global struggle is now emerging, with one side comprising China’s Communist regime and its revisionist allies in Moscow and — most worrisome from Israel’s point of view — in Tehran.

So Jeruslaem may soon find out that like “Maverick” and Mr. Katz, it’d be best to defy Beijing and inch closer to Taiwan, a rising Asian powerhouse and a fellow democracy.